


The Winchester Effect

by Maldoror_Chant



Series: Two Blades Series [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels still have Powers and Wings, Demon Dean Winchester, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gallows Humor, Humor, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Unreliable Narrator, brief homophobic language, constant interruptions, desperately-trying-to Mick Davies/Sam Winchester, divergent from season 9, outsider pov, timeline around season 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-01 21:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: After the Men of Letters tried to torture and kill him, Mick had no qualms about resigning. He'd have formally handed in his notice if there'd been anybody left alive in the wrecked compound to hand it to. Come to think of it, that worked even better as a way of saying 'I quit'.Maybe now, with no more secrets and lies between them, he'd be able to get closer to Sam Winchester. They were already friends and fellow survivors of the Men of Letters. There was no reason why this growing mutual attraction between them wouldn't lead to a real relationship in time. Or so Mick thought until he ran full tilt into the Winchester Effect.A romantic comedy featuring demons, dinosaurs, angels, assassins and other nuisances constantly interfering with Mick’s love life.





	1. Once more with feeling

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to cut this into tiny little chapters, rather than one long fic, as it’s episodic and the tone varies between sections, from funny to romantic to sweet to weird. I should have a new chapter out daily or every other day, they’re very short and just need a polish.

“Your brother is a knight of hell.”

“Yes.”

“Your brother, Dean Winchester, is a knight of hell.”

“Yeah.”

“A mythical _knight_ of hell. Your brother.”

”...that’s what I said.”

“Yes, I’m just repeating it for effect.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh. Haha.”

“Why? Or how? Or both?”

“It was kind of an accident.”

Mick spilled a few drops from the mug he was bringing to his mouth. “Falling down the stairs is an accident, Sam.” 

“Yeah, but- I mean, he didn’t sell his soul or do it on purpose. He… here, you know so much about lore, I’ve been wanting to ask you this for ages, but… um, it’s private.”

“And I hadn’t yet been tortured by my former organization and fled from their wrecked compound,” Mick said pleasantly, filling in the blanks.

Sam looked down quickly at the table. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Sam…” Mick hesitated. They’d been circling this without talking about it outright on the long drive back to Sam’s home base. “Let’s just say my resignation was long overdue, and that you have nothing to feel sorry about on that or any other front. The only reason I can’t say I’d have done the same thing in your shoes is that I am not as good a man as you. But I think I would like to try to be. Now-“ he said quickly, as Sam’s eyes had gone wide and vulnerable, and they weren’t up to talking about the elephant in the room yet. Fraternal knights of hell were a safer subject than the tenuous thing of many strands and possibilities between them, in all its complexity of past lies, present regrets and future hopes. “What did you want to show me?”

“Oh. Here.” Sam took a pen and made a quick sketch on a pad of paper. “We never wrote this down or kept it here, not when we realized the previous owners of the place had returned. Do you recognize this symbol?”

Mick looked at it, then turned it sideways. “It looks like the pre-dynasty symbol for male fertility if you remove this squiggle here.”

“I’ll take that as a no.” Sam’s shoulders slumped. He’d had a difficult twenty-four hours too. 

“What is it?”

“Its called the Mark of Cain.”

“Never heard of it, sorry. Sounds biblical to the hilt.”

Sam wearily tapped the paper with his fingers. “It allowed Dean to kill Abaddon a few years back.”

“Oh, that’s good, because even we Men of Letters were at a loss on how to defeat a Knight of-…ah, not so good, I just connected the dots.”

“Yeah. It’s not a direct line from Abaddon to Dean’s present condition, but yeah.”

“Not a direct line?”

“He got it to kill her, but he got it from Cain. The actual man from the bible. The Father of Murder. He’d become a demon- long story. The mark is his. It turns the bearer- we didn’t know this when he first got it, but it turned Dean into…into the Descendant of Cain, so, ah, the knight of hell thing is maybe not even the worst of it.”

“Somewhat unfortunate,” said Mick, because the British had invented the art of the understatement. 

Abaddon Knight of Hell, Cain the Father of Murder, Dean Winchester the Descendant of Cain.

Sam was avoiding his gaze. Mick tried to imagine living with this kind of darkness just around the corner, the crushing weight of such a secret. Mick knew about dark secrets too, he knew how heavy they felt, how vile they seemed when finally dragged out into the light of day. There’d been so many secrets between them, going both ways. Murder and deceit and darkness and _this_ insanity. 

“Sam?”

“Yes?” Sam was looking down at the table, expression unreadable but shoulders firm as if he bracing for a blow he could no longer avoid.

“What am I drinking?” Sam had set the mug down at his elbow earlier without explanation, and Mick had been too tired and stunned by the past few hours of his life going inside out to really notice what he was sipping.

“Um, tea?” Sam looked uncertain, an incongruous look on a man of fascinating intellect, strength of character and physical power 

“Oh.” He’d assumed it was very bad coffee. Americans drank their coffee weak and their tea strong, it seemed. 

“You like tea, it’s what you drink at the compound.”

“Right,” said Mick - a handy British term used to say neither yes, no, or ‘are you serious?’ “In view of the circumstances, and everything you are about to explain to me, could I perhaps beg you for something a little stronger?”

“Yeah, good idea,” said Sam, relaxing and smiling as he got to his feet. “What’s your poison?”

“Scotch, brandy, lager, I’m not picky.”

“Hm, we have some Bud, vodka and half a bottle of Jack.”

“I’m not picky,” Mick reiterated, looking down into the dubious tea.

While Sam left on his errand of mercy, Mick looked around. The few times he’d been here before, he’d been every inch the Man of Letters. He’d purposely and professionally stayed away from private areas, keeping to the library, examining the books, helping this foreign uneducated cousin through texts, or studying some lore to assist Sam in a hunt. Most of the time they’d met at the compound where Mick had clearly been in charge. Circumstances had changed, to say the least. Mick was now sitting at the kitchen table in his shirtsleeves, near a plate of sandwiches with some odd foreign meat in them, tea at hand and hopefully something stronger on the way. He was out of the Men of Letters, he’d burnt the Code to the ground, he’d left Ketch dead in the wrecked compound. It was safe to say that his entire life had been turned upside down, but lately he hadn’t liked it very much, so this was not such a bad thing in final. Yes, the implications were grave. But he felt at peace with himself as he hadn’t in-... in a very long time, truthfully. This place, and the man coming towards him with liquid succor... they felt more familiar than they had any right to be, as if he’d finally come home after a very long voyage.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely to Sam as the latter held out a filled tumbler. His gratitude was not for the dubious liquor. From the warmth of Sam’s tired smile, he knew that.

Mick ended his first day as a free man in one of the guest rooms, with heartburn and more information than he could reasonably absorb, but he slept well all in all.


	2. Between Heaven and Hell

Mick woke up slowly and without too much of a ‘where in the bally hell am I??’ moment. The entirety of his life changes had settled in his mind as something that he now had to work with.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes- and tensed so hard the bed rattled against the wall. The angel was standing two feet away, looking down at him.

“Whu?!”

The being’s expression was unreadable when he said, “He deserved better.”

“Uh…”

The angel looked down at the floor briefly, then back up at Mick.

Mick had a feeling he was under a microscope, one that could read every sin and means-to-an-end decision he’d ever made, and there’d been many.

“He made a lot of mistakes and his burden was the heaviest, but he’s now the best of us. He deserved better than you. But I can’t make that decision for him.”

“Uh-“

“If you hurt him,” the angel added as an aside, “Dean will kill you.”

With that, he disappeared.

Mick stared at the empty space.

“Good morning to you too,” he eventually said to thin air.

 

\---

 

Castiel was sitting at the kitchen table when Mick walked in. Sam, pouring a cup of coffee at the counter, gave him a luminous smile.

“Good morning, Mick. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, and woke up fine too,” Mick said with a look at the angel. Castiel stared back without saying anything.

Mick had hoped to spend some time alone with Sam this morning. Beyond the pleasure this afforded, and the many questions he still had, Mick had wanted to feel that connection between them again. His conversations with Sam these past few months, dissecting obscure points of lore together, or shooting the breeze comparing their respective cultures, had been some of the best times he’d ever had. They’d been building blocks constructing something between them - respect and friendship to start with, but Mick found himself wanting to know how much further this connection between them could go, now that he’d thrown off his yoke and Sam was no longer hiding those dark secrets. 

An angel staring at him without blinking for the past two minutes wasn’t propitious for baring one’s soul, however, not when Mick had a good idea what his soul probably looked like to a celestial being. Maybe he could help Sam with that coffee and some breakfast, get away from-

There was a small wash of air heavy with the stink of sulfur. 

Mick found himself swept out of his chair, walked backwards and pinned to a wall by an elbow, the First Blade an inch form his eye.

“He wasn’t there,” said Dean conversationally. “Where is he?”

Sam’s coffee cup hit the counter and fell over unnoticed. “Dean! What- leave him alone! You can’t hurt him.” He strode up to his brother and tugged at his arm, without making it move.

“Not quite right, Sammy.”

Sam stared at him, then whirled around. “Cas?!”

“Don’t go running to mommy. Cas added your boy toy here to the Do Not Kill list, but wisely put in a ‘unless he turns out to be a lying conniving British bastard’ clause.” Dean’s eyes hadn’t left Mick’s.

Castiel got up from the table and walked over, ignoring Sam’s accusing glare. He stationed himself on Dean’s other side and asked, “Who was not there?”

“The guy I killed yesterday. The one with the interesting eyes.”

The angel’s gaze turned inward, reflecting. “I think I see the one you mean.”

“Ketch? You mean his body wasn’t at the compound?” Sam asked.

“That place? Who knows? It got angel-nuked, and then I went back later and burned the rest down to the ground to cover your tracks. So he’s not a ghost, either.”

“Then where did you look?” Mick asked blankly, thoughts mostly taken up by the First Blade in front of his face.

“Where’d do you think?” Dean said with a grin like his knife. “Disneyland.”

“He- he wasn’t down in-...? But you killed him. No doubt about that.” Mick remembered just how very dead Ketch was. 

“I’d say. What was his name?”

“K-Ketch. Arthur Ketch.”

Castiel vanished.

Sam’s eyes went wide. “No. Oh no. There is no fucking way Ketch made it upstairs!”

“Stranger things,” his brother said shortly, eyes still focused on Mick.

A flutter. Castiel re-appeared and shook his head.

“Yes, I would have been surprised if you’d found him.” Mick had the impression the angel was persona non grata up in Heaven, but it seemed he still had some ins and outs.

The elbow pressing him against the wall eased up a bit, after one sharp look from Dean weighing him. 

“He was human, right?” Dean asked.

“Oh yes-“

“Technically,” Sam muttered.

”- all our operatives are checked weekly for any kind of infection or other signs they could be compromised.” Not the most comfortable of routines, though the medical tech kept tea and biscuits around for afterwards.

“So not purgatory,” Dean concluded. 

“Is this man dangerous?” asked the angel.

Mick and Sam exchanged looks. Then Sam reached over and wrenched Dean’s elbow away with a reproving scowl, and put an arm around Mick’s shoulders, leading him back to the table.

“He’s a psycho and a killer and I’m not happy knowing he’s walking about, if he is. But I’ll deal with that if and when I see him again. Dean, you were seriously that bent on-…on….you know? Both me and Cas were alright in the end.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, the road to Hell is paved with ‘meant to kill everyone but failed due to a demon’ intentions.”

Sam sustained his look without flinching despite the rapacious smile. Some unsaid words were exchanged. Dean put away some of the attitude and went to lean a hip against the counter, tossing the First Blade from hand to hand casually. “I grant ya, I sorta wanted to know how deep the few breakable bits left in the steel behind those eyes went, but mainly I went down there to make sure he _was_ down there.”

“You knew he wasn’t going to be?” Sam asked sharply. “How?”

“Instinct. The look in his eyes as the Blade started to slice. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he still had a good chance of pulling a Houdini, I saw it for a second just as I put his lights out.”

“So he got away. As long as he leaves us alone, do we care?” 

The Blade made another revolution through the air. “Care is a strong word, but do you have a list of creatures that _cannot_ be killed by this here knife?”

”...No.”

“Exactly. My gut says this guy’s gonna be a bad penny.”

Sam deliberately turned to the coffee machine, poured Mick a cup, handed it to him, and then turned to his brother and stated: “If he’s stupid enough to show his face again, I’ll put a bullet hole in it. In the meantime, leave Mick alone. He has nothing to do with that maniac.”

“Whatever,” was the predictable answer. “If you do peg him, bro, give me a shout and Cas n’ I will make sure he gets to where he’s going this time. Now, you up for breakfast in that little place in Atlantic City? We can go hit the slots afterwards. Or the strip clubs if you promise not to blush too hard this time.”

“Mick and I are fine here,” said Sam firmly. “I was going to make pancakes.”

“Awesome. Make sure there’s enough for me n’ Cas too.”

The angel was already sitting back at the table. Sam’s mouth pinched, but he tried to pretend this was normal for Mick’s benefit. Mick was grateful for the attempt to spare his feelings at least. He knew full well that the duo there was just making sure the British Invader really wasn’t working hand in glove with Ketch, and he didn’t begrudge them the caution. Too much. They didn’t know him from Adam after all. Surely once they realized he meant no harm to Sam, they would retire their surveillance and leave him and Sam in peace.


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur Ketch vanished into the mist. A thin lead indicated he might have stowed away on a ship out of New York, but it could have been a false trail. It took Mick and Sam a couple of weeks to stop feeling as if they had a bulls-eye painted on their backs every time they left the bunker. But eventually Mick pulled himself together. Whether it was Ketch or another operative, it didn’t make much difference. He knew what the Code dictated. He knew that he was on borrowed time, and he wanted to make the most of it. Starting with deepening his friendship with Sam.

Sam was allowed to leave the bunker freely. Mick’s knowledge of his superiors suggested they might try to kidnap him for leverage against the angel-demon combo he was related to, but not in the immediate. Right now they’d be reassessing things and finding ways to circumvent the unexpected degree of supernatural protection covering Sam and the rest of the American hunters. Mick not benefiting from the same protection, he was left alone in the bunker for days on end. No matter, it was well appointed and full of books. It was also familiar and comforting territory for Sam, a good place for him to relax and perhaps open up to a new relationship. Now, how to get the subject off of the Men of Letters, monsters, Ketch and other heavy topics they always ended up discussing, and on to more intimate matters?

Sam had kindly brought back what Mick had asked for, as well as the package that had been dropped off at the PO box they used. While the hunter got over his latest trip with an afternoon nap, Mick went about his plan.

When Sam stumbled into the kitchen with a yawn, asking what smelled so good, Mick was just about ready. As a long time bachelor, and somebody who’d gone from eating out of dust bins in his youth to appreciating fine cuisine, Mick had taught himself to cook. This continent made it something of a challenge: he’d found out during his few careful trips outside to the stores that Americans had cheese in tubes and marshmallow mash in jars, but no quality ingredients, at least not in Lebanon, Kansas. He’d made do, and ordered the rest online.

Sam looked impressed with the steaming bowl of beef stroganoff (with brandy Mick had had to order from across the seas), the home-made pasta, the salad with raspberries and balsamic vinaigrette reduction (ditto). 

“Wow. This must have taken you all afternoon. Are you getting bored of bunker life, or are you just really happy to see me?” Sam asked, looking pleased and faintly flushed. Brilliant, thought Mick. 

He went to get the glasses, turning over the best answer in his mind. The last two weeks, despite being frequently locked in together in tight quarters, he and Sam had been hitting it off great as far as friends and fellow Men of Letters, but not so much on the romantic angle. He wasn’t going to let a lead like this go to waste.

“I am glad you’re back, it does get lonely here at times,” he said, setting down the glasses. “I-... Sam? Is everything alright?”

Sam’s eyes were fixed blindly on the stroganoff. His shoulders had slumped, his mouth turned down at the corners.

“Oh, sorry.” He made an unconvincing effort to pull himself together and reached for the serving spoon. “Can I help myself? I’m starving.”

“Please.” Mick sat down, examining his friend’s face. 

Sam took a bite, said something absent about it being very good.

“Sam, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing... Sorry. It’s just... the last person who cooked for me like this was Dean. Don’t mind me. This is... this is really great, Mick. Thanks.” He poked at a noodle with a fork. 

At least they’d have leftovers for a few days, Mick told himself philosophically.

He spent the rest of the evening getting Sam drunk enough where he finally relaxed on the couch and started long rambling stories about his brother during the better days, and the heart ache and the pain and the love and the loss, a pulsating ulcer that visibly needed lancing, now that he finally had someone who knew the truth (and wasn’t the angel shagging the demon in question). Mick rather blamed himself for not realizing sooner how much Sam needed to unload about all this.

“So after awhile, the cure no longer worked,” Sam sighed, sending enough cheap bourbon wafting over to Mick that the latter, who’d only pretended to drink in order to have a chance at keeping up, almost keeled over. “But it was easier to let go this time. A bit. Because we knew there was still some of Dean in there, and that we could at least stop him from going all jihad on the rest of the planet. Not that he seems all that inclined to, really.”

“It really isn’t possible for him to die? At all?”

“No. It’s the fucking Mark. We confirmed at least that much. Cain could have killed him, but since Dean killed Cain first, now Dean has to bear this bloody curse. It seems there’s some kind of- of universal law. Until someone else bears the Mark and kills him, he cannot die.”

“Then that’s that.”

Sam stirred and stared at him. “What?”

“What can’t be changed must be born.”

”...You sound like Cas. I... I can't be that philosophical about it. It’s... sometimes he’s really like Dean still, it’s actually pretty- pretty crazy how much he resembles my brother at times. But then other times...”

Mick had been studying up on Dean’s case. The creature was a menace to society at large, and perhaps even to Mick and Sam in particular. On a less important note - but somewhat of an incentive too - presenting Sam with a freshly cured and undemonized brother would have gotten him further than all the flowers and chocolates in the world, so to speak. Unfortunately Mick had already come to much the same conclusion as Sam, bar one detail.

“He is still your brother.” 

Sam rubbed his face, looking like he wanted to yell disagreement, but was too drunk and tired.

“He has his memories and most of his personality,” Mick insisted. Sam looked up slowly and finally met his eyes. He'd lived with this version of Dean for over a year, he had to know this on some level, but for an injury that cut this deep, Mick knew it had to be said out loud by somebody else to be fully accepted. “There’s just a part of him that’s damaged now. If he’d lost a leg, he’d need a prosthesis. If he’d sustained a head injury, he’d need reeducation, perhaps someone to permanently assist him with memory or function. What Dean has lost instead is his conscience, through no fault of his own. It seems to me that you and Castiel have found an adequate prosthesis with this leash of his. The fact that he’s not been fighting it seems to indicate he accepts this as a replacement of what he has lost. He _is_ still your brother, Sam. From what I’ve seen of him, he still cares for you and Castiel more than anything, even if he’s not able to express these emotions as well as before-“

Sam burst out laughing and it took him three whole minutes to be able to stop, though he seemed unable to explain just why that had been so funny. His face and shoulders had relaxed and some deep seated pain seemed to have shifted just a bit...

Drawing a blanket over his friend, now thoroughly passed out on the couch, Mick watched Sam sleep for awhile. The way his face relaxed, the marks of care and worry he still carried. Mick patted him gently on the shoulder and went to bed. He hoped to be able to share more of that burden one day, to be allowed closer enough to do so, but for now... for now he hoped he’d helped a bit as a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter are somewhat serious, but after this it gets funnier again, as we get further away from sad and serious subject matters, and back to the universe stopping Mick from getting laid.


	4. Love and a Bullet

Mick had let his five o’clock shadow go all the way to full-on beard, he was wearing dark glasses, a baseball cap and clothes he’d bought out of a shop that sold everything from antacids to bug zappers. The only way he could get further from his previous self was with plastic surgery and a sex-change, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to go to quite those lengths in order to stay safe. 

“Feels good to be out, right?” Sam said, long strides taking him down the quiet street. “Where do you want to go? We’ll need to drop by the copy shop, start grinding out some IDs for you, but maybe you want to go get some better clothes first?” Sam turned to him, a hand on his mouth hiding a smile. Mick faced him, ready with a sardonic comment about US of A men’s wear-

They say you don’t hear the bullet that kills you, Mick thought wildly, but I heard it - oh lord _I heard it/ _I heard it carve right into my skull-__

__The Ba-aang of the rifle shot still echoed through the streets when Mick concluded that his ability to breathe and think and stay upright meant that he was still alive and unharmed. But he’d distinctly felt something hit his head, and the soft punching noise of a bullet striking something right above his spinal cord._ _

__Sam, face white, stared over Mick’s shoulder. “C-Cas?!”_ _

__That explained it._ _

__Mick turned his head and nearly bumped his nose against a trench coat sleeve. What had knocked into his noggin was the angel’s extended hand, now clenched into a fist. Castiel had his back turned towards them, other hand tamely at his side as if he’d just been standing there all along, waiting for the bus._ _

__“Uh-“_ _

__The angel turned his fist, dropped something that went _clink_ as it hit the sidewalk, and vanished._ _

__Sam grabbed Mick by the arm and two seconds later they were crouched behind a large metal bin in the back alley of a restaurant. The place stank to high heaven, and the smell was like ambrosia to Mick right that minute. He kept seeing in his mind’s eye the flattened bullet the angel had dropped._ _

__“Wow. Men of Letters,” said Sam in a clipped voice. “Nice bunch.”_ _

__“They seem themselves more as principled, I believe,” Mick replied, because staying cool under pressure was bred in the bone._ _

__“Let’s get back to the bunker.”_ _

__“Splendid idea. I’ll be shaving and wearing my suit again when we get back. I’d hate to die in this outfit.”_ _

__“Don’t say that,” Sam said sharply, then visibly fished around for a suitably flip rejoinder before giving up. He shadowed Mick all the way back to the car, despite Mick asking him several times not to put himself in the line of fire._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__Two o’ clock in the morning found both men sitting at the kitchen table decorated with a few bottles, waiting. Mick didn’t even know what they were waiting for exactly, but he didn’t seem to be able to formulate a question, or move._ _

__There was a wash of displaced air._ _

__“So, the Tower of London is kinda smaller than you’d think,” Dean said, striding past his brother to go grab the one bottle that was still mostly full. “Made the job easier.”_ _

__“Job?” Mick asked blankly._ _

__“Yeah. You can relax, Sammy, your British slice is off the hook.”_ _

__Sam and Mick shared a startled glance (so startled that Sam didn’t tell his brother off for his usual disparaging way of addressing Mick.)_ _

__“Wh-what did you do?”_ _

__“We found the heads of your organization.” That was Castiel who’d said that, staring down at Mick from where he’d silently appeared, half a foot away. Mick almost fell out of his chair. “They were well hidden with spells and guards.”_ _

__“They could’ve just used glitter and ken dolls,” said Dean with a vicious smile, before swigging straight out of the bottle._ _

__“You- you- but the HQ is-... I’ve heard it is impossible to find, particularly by entities such as yourselves.”_ _

__Dean snorted._ _

__“The human who tried to kill you gave us a place to start,” Castiel said calmly. “Then it was a matter of looking. We have resources.”_ _

__“Was... was it Ketch? The man who-”_ _

__“The guy with the interesting eyes? He’s still in the wind.” Dean shrugged. “This guy was just a triggerman.”_ _

__“If you managed to get to the upper cadre... what did you do?” Mick felt oddly equivocal about the answer. They had tried to kill him - twice - but the Men of Letters were still in his mind one of the main bastions against the supernatural._ _

__“Nothing,” Dean said. “Oh, I got to go Kill Bill on any guard who didn’t run away, so Cas could have a word with the bosses without getting interrupted, but mainly we left them with threats.”_ _

__“You did?” Sam appeared both surprised and not entirely pleased._ _

__“If we disposed of these people, others would only take their place. It’s much like Heaven,” Castiel announced. “Rather than wiping them out, we left them alive but with a very clear idea of what would happen if we were to come back.”_ _

__“That’d do it, I suppose,” said Mick, hoping there was another bottle around other than the one Dean had finished just now. “I have to thank you-”_ _

__Mick turned towards the angel who’d caught the bullet aimed at his head, only to find an empty space._ _

__“Uh-“_ _

__“You.”_ _

__Mick jarred his chair back. Dean was leaning over the table, his face a foot away._ _

__“Don’t get any ideas. We just didn’t want Sam caught in the crossfire. You stay out of trouble or else I will kill you myself. Capisce?”_ _

__“I-“_ _

__He was talking to empty space again._ _

__Sam’s face was an interesting blend of relieved and embarrassed. “Yeah, something I should warn you about, Mick: the Winchesters don’t handle gratitude very gracefully.”_ _

__“Jolly good to know,” Mick said to soothe Sam’s feelings. Personally he thought Dean had said it exactly is it stood, but it didn’t matter in final. Mick’s head swam as he examined this unhoped for reprieve. It wouldn’t last forever, he knew that, but now he could get out of the bunker without fear, he could lead a full life for a few... months? Years? It was all bonus time from here on out, and he was looking forward to spending it with Sam, whatever his ‘brothers in law’ seemed to think of the British invader._ _


	5. A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mick felt a thrill. After decades of sitting at a desk doing research and sending better men than himself into danger, he was here on the front line at last. He was accompanying Sam on a hunt. A real hunt, with all the restrictions imposed by cutting the ties with the mother land. 

Which led to another interesting development. ‘Budget Restrictions’ had never been two more beautiful words than when Mick realized he and Sam were going to share a room. This was surely _it_. How could it not be? No immediate attempts on his life, no interfering in laws, the other hunters they were meeting up with had a trailer parked on the other side of town. Stuck within a small intimate space, actually sleeping within a few feet of each other-

“17, this is it.” Sam opened the door, stepped in, and stopped Mick as the other walked in. Mick looked down in surprise at the hand across his chest.

“Okay. Now, I remember you complaining about that three star hotel we stayed in once, back before you left the Men of Letters, so, ah, I expect this is going to be a bit different for you. Here’s what I suggest. Wear your shoes at all times, until you’re about to go to bed- keep your socks on, also all of your clothes too, and put one of your t-shirts on your pillow. And whatever you do, don’t look too closely at any suspicious stains. I’m going to go and hit the head, have a look around, make sure it’s not too- I’ll just head that way. Oh, crap, they didn’t empty the garbage. I’ll take care of that too. Give me a sec - maybe just stay there by the door if you like.”

Mick was now living on the edge. His one good suit - the one the angel had repaired of bullet holes and bloodstains along with Mick’s body back in the compound over a month ago - was pressed and in the car in case they needed to impersonate federal agents. He was dressed in jeans, a tough shirt, a sturdy jacket, and he had a gun slipped into an arm holster. He was no longer a namby-pamby desk-jokey. So while Sam inspected the bathroom, Mick took care of the bin himself. It contained pretty much what he’d expected from a cheap motel and motorway stop with cheaper entertainment outside. He took it like a man.

But he didn’t think the petri dish was the best setting for what he’d had in mind in regards to Sam. 

 

\---

 

The next day was no more propitious for intimacy, since they were joining up with two other hunters, Roy and Walt. Sam had given Mick to understand that the alliance would be uneasy because Roy and Walt were ‘a pair of knuckleheads’ who didn’t like Sam very much. But since they liked witches even less, and Sam had offered to help, they’d agreed to team up. They also knew Mick; they’d been potential hunters he’d interviewed. Since then, the news about the Men of Letters’ agenda had been circulated. Amusingly, the attempt by the Men of Letters at turning the American hunters into a more cohesive and effective force had worked swimmingly, it just happened that the cohesive and effective force in question opposed the British tooth and nail.

So it was a toss up who, of Sam or Mick, the two hunters were most suspicious of. It took forever for Mick to persuade them that no, from all the signs he’d seen and his knowledge of the lore, the four of them were not actually dealing with a coven as they’d initially thought, but with a summoning ritual gone bad, allowing a number of fairy kin into the real world. It took even longer to convince them to let him cast a simple spell on them to allow them to see the creatures. 

“I told you they were knuckleheads,” Sam muttered as Roy and Walt _finally_ tromped off into the New England woods not far from Salem, armed with metal bars rather than useless witch-killing bullets. 

“You believe me, right?” Mick couldn’t help but ask. Between Sam’s relatives and every hunter he’d met so far since the Men of Letters’ true plans had come to light, Mick was feeling rather isolated. His exceptional and hard-won knowledge and culture, which had been lauded in the Men of Letters, seemed to make him an even greater object of suspicion and dislike to the locals.

“What? Of course! Mick, do not let those idiots get to you. You’ve forgotten more in one evening than they’ll ever know in their entire lives. Collectively.” Sam grasped Mick’s shoulder and gave him an encouraging squeeze. “They’re probably just intimidated, and they’re reacting like the Neanderthals they-“

The next second Mick was flat on his back on the ground, Sam’s body over his- and something bright and very fast flashed by in his peripheral vision. 

“Sorry - it was coming right at you. Dean fought one, said they’re strong for little balls of fairy light. You okay?”

He was looking down at Mick, their faces a few inches apart. Mick only had to lean up a few degrees and their lips would meet. Factor in the adrenaline of a near escape, the dashing save- it was the perfect setup. In movies, that is.

In real life, Mick had been propelled to the ground by someone considerably taller and heavier than he was, and his sacrum had come into rather abrupt contact with a tree root. He was winded and his heart was squirming with shock. Sam had almost immediately looked away, eyes scanning the darkness for danger.

Just to bury any possible Moment in this moment, Roy came stumbling out of the woods, his nose pouring with blood and mumbling about ‘fucking Tinker Bell’. Despite the pain in his coccyx and the rest of him, Mick felt pleasantly validated.

“Where’s Walt?” Sam asked sharply, then heaved himself off of Mick in one smooth move and turned, iron bar at the ready. Somebody - who wasn’t Walt - was running towards them. He looked to be about Mick’s size, dressed in moth-eaten clothes straight out of a Dickens novel. 

“Make a deal, make a deal!” he giggled at Sam, his voice fluty and erratic while his feet danced a restless jig. “Second son- no good! But those two are fist sons- make a deal! I take them and leave you alone! Deal? Deal?”

“No deal,” Sam answered shortly, swinging the iron bar and making the fairy kin jump back. 

Ignoring the ache in his backside, Mick scrambled to his feet and grabbed the tire iron he’d dropped. He lunged towards Roy, swinging up his weapon. The hunter spluttered and made a move to draw his gun (still probably packing witch-killer bullets, the doubting Thomas)

“Duck,” Mick advised, stepping between Roy and the speeding ball of light heading towards the latter’s head. 

Mick knew some hand-to-hand combat and such, it’d been expected, though in those matters he’d been an indifferent student at best. No matter, it turned out that when connecting an iron bar with a fairy, his tennis lessons came in much handier. 

Roy found himself half crouched and sneezing up sparkly dust, the remains of the fairy that’d been about to nut him. The gobsmacked look he gave Mick was a bit of a balm to the latter’s feelings of being undervalued earlier.

Eventually all the fairy were disposed of. They found Walt in the dip between two oak tree roots, snoring soundly with a fatuous look on his face that had Roy kicking him awake before Mick could explain it was a well-known fairy spell at fault.

“Not bad for a first official hunt!” Sam gunned the Impala’s motor and gave Mick a pleased look.

“It went rather well,” said Mick, forcing his face into a smile, while settling his bruised arse a little more solidly onto the icepack they’d gotten from the local pharmacy. Mick was aching all over, exhausted from a sleepless night but still too keyed up and sore to rest, had mulch and dead leaves in various crevices of his clothes and his anatomy, and his right hand was still twanging from the overly hearty handshake he’d gotten from Roy before leaving. The latter had been gratifying, but Mick still felt like crawling back to the bunker, taking a hot bath and falling asleep for a week.

One thing was sure, hunting was simply not the right environment to try to progress his relationship with Sam. He’d wait until he was back at the bunker and in his comfort zone.


	6. An Angel at my Table

Three days after his first hunting trip, Mick felt sufficiently recovered to proceed.

“Sam, how would you like to eat out tonight?” asked Mick, turning his head with superb timing at the end of that question to see that Castiel was sitting on the other end of the table.

Sam looked up from where he was sorting through a stack of books. “Sorry, Mick. Cas and I have a thing we need to check. But you go, you’re probably sick and tired of this place. Should be safe enough, but I can ask Dean to go with you if you prefer.”

Since “I’d rather go swimming with sharks,” was not a diplomatic answer when talking to the demony knob’s brother while his boyfriend was also present, Mick demurred. “I’m sure it’s safe out there, but you should get out too. Is this research so urgent it can’t wait until after dinner? 

That got him a narrowed eyed look from the angel. 

Sam, who really did deserve a break instead of more research, rubbed his eyes.“It doesn’t have a deadline, per se... and there isn’t anything in the fridge. Not sure-“

A flutter made them both turn around. Castiel, back in his seat, silently moved a paper bag towards Sam.

“Oh thanks, Cas. That sorts that out.”

Mick gave the busybody celestial being a superior British look, but angels were apparently immune. Castiel sustained his glare for a full minute, then without breaking it, slid a paper bag towards him, forcing Mick to look away first.

Politeness warred with the obvious gauntlet. “Thank you. I guess I will stay here and assist.”

“Oh, no, Mick, go ahead if you need a break.”

Mick pulled the bag towards him as answer and sat down in the seat next to Sam. His friend’s dinner consisted of a nice salad arrangement and some chicken on focaccia. Mick opened his own bag to find two limp pieces of bread with some kind of meat construction in it. “What...is this?”

“Baloney,” answered the angel. “You are fond of it.”

Four months ago, when making what was to be his final report to Hess, he’d been dining in an exclusive London club on pheasant breast prepared expressly by a four-star chef the Men of Letters had hired to cater the evening. “Is it now.”

There was the faintest wrinkle of the brow. “Dean told me you are-... maybe he wasn’t being factual.” 

Sam looked up sharply. “Cas! C’mon, be nice, please. Here, Mick, if you want to stay and help, we can share.”

“Thank you,” said Mick with a frigid look at the angel (once more completely ignored).

The arcane problem did turn out to be interesting. Castiel disappeared to check something for them a couple hours later. Next time Mick glanced up, his mind on a book he needed, he found a bag at his elbow. It contained a quite decent beef-eater sandwich, like the one he’d lived off of when he’d been working on his higher lore degree after graduating from Kendricks. Mick decided to take it as a sign of either thanks for the effort, or perhaps even a truce, though he wasn’t sure he’d trust it further than the length of the sandwich.


	7. A Man of Few Words

“Sam-“ Mick stifled a sigh when he saw that the conference room was human-free yet not unoccupied. Dean and Castiel were standing half a foot apart, and staring at each other in a way that did somewhat confirm what Sam was saying about the two of them all along - though Mick still had trouble imagining how _that_ relationship was supposed to work. 

“You two. It’s odd, really. I visited the bunker frequently for nine months and never saw hide nor hair of the two of you back then.”

The pair exchanged a look and then Dean leaned a hip against the conference table - but still only inches away from the angel. “That was because we didn’t want the Limey bastard in charge of a secret organization dedicated to hunting non-humans to know we were around. Well, that was Sam’s suggestion on how to handle your probing of our setup. You probably don’t want to know what my suggestion was.”

‘Probing our setup’ was good, it reminded Mick that he’d been an ally for less than six weeks now and still in his probationary period. However, though he couldn’t necessarily hold his own in a knife-fight, Mick could hold his own in a conversation, thank you very much. “Indeed. I’m glad we got that unpleasantness sorted out. But how odd. I’ve talked to Sam a lot in the past weeks of helping him in his hunts, and I could have sworn he said you two didn’t show up all that much in the past year before I met him.”

Dean opened his mouth to shoot back something, but Castiel interrupted with his usual brutal approach: “We are protecting Sam.”

“Yes,” Mick mused, “I’m sure I’m a terrifying danger to a six foot four hunter who’s been killing monsters longer than I’ve had an advanced degree in Communications.”

“Not from you,” Castiel said succinctly, and no, it was not meant to sound nice - the hope this might be a misconstruction due to the way an angel operated his vessel was made less likely by Dean’s sudden crooked grin.

“I thought you said the Men of Letters were sorted,” Mick said tightly. Neither he nor Sam had been taking any particular precautions since that bullet had nearly perforated Mick’s cranium. What beautiful targets they would have been presenting these last two weeks on the road.

“Not from them. At least, not directly. If they’re behind this, then...” Dean made an elaborate shrug that probably-not-accidentally rubbed part of his body against the angel’s. “But my gut says they’re not involved. We did scare ‘em good, they’ll be careful. It’s not them. I don’t know why he’s hanging around.”

”...Who?”

“Him. The man with the interesting eyes.”

“Ketch?!”

“Hhm-mh.” Dean was staring blankly at a wall. “We find the occasional trace. Looks like he’s been keeping tabs on you two, but he doesn’t want to hurt Sam. Or you, I guess.”

“That is not established,” Cas said tightly.

Dean turned his head to stare at the angel. “I tell you it is. Don’t you trust my gut by now?”

“Your intestines are not omniscient.”

“You’re being a mother hen again.” 

The two stared at each other. This seemed to be a bone of contention. Maybe. But instead of stepping away and getting into an argument, the confrontation seemed to be igniting the air in the few inches between them. 

Mick had the distinct impression that his presence was unneeded and unwanted, and that he was intruding on an intimate moment. Which, as far as he was concerned, was fair turnaround. 

“How do you know he doesn’t want to hurt me?” he asked, then asked again more loudly a few seconds later.

“He left a message,” Dean said, finally looking away from the angel with some reluctance. 

“A message? What did it say? Was it meant for me? Was it in code?”

“It was left at your spot on a picnic table where you and Sam stopped for lunch that one time near Salina. FMJ, hollow-point, .30 caliber. Sniper rifle ammo. Unfired. Code for ‘I could have if I wanted to’. But not sure why he’s not taking that shot, or why he’s leaving that message, or why he’s still around if he’s not after your head.”

“And you didn’t tell us this... why?” Mick asked tightly.

“What kind of guy is he?” Dean asked, blithely bypassing the question. “Maybe he feels sorry for you?”

“I doubt it.”

“A rabid dog?” Dean cocked his head, sounding a little disapproving. As if he were one to talk.

“No.” Mick’s mind was working furiously, but his tone was cool and British, because demons and angels did not deserve to see him fret, particularly the annoying dismissive ones. “Ketch uses violence like a painter uses his brush, but he is not a rampant killer. If someone does not need to die, he won’t eliminate him. If someone does, he’ll do the job. Not too homicidal, nor too merciful - something of a Goldilocks of killers.”

Dean snorted and turned away abruptly, and it took him a few seconds before he could throw over his shoulder in a suitably unimpressed voice, “That joke was crap.”

“Are you going to inform Sam?”

“Why should we?” Dean shrugged without turning around - while his hand settled on the angel’s hip, sliding beneath the trench coat. “I’m entirely sure it’s you he’s after, if he’s after anyone.”

“And when were you going to inform me?” Mick asked frigidly.

“You’re informed,” Castiel pointed out, leaving Mick once again struggling to figure out if that had been deliberately curt and rude, or merely factual in an otherwordly way. It seemed to amuse Dean at any rate; he quirked a smile and leaned over to whisper in Castiel’s ear.

Mick rubbed his forehead, where the usual twin-barreled migraine was forming. “May I ask that if you do communicate with Ketch, that-“

The conference room was empty.

Mick glared at the map table. Finally he managed to shelve his annoyance with his friend’s relatives and focus on the issue. First, he was going to tell Sam. It’d been implied that they’d preferred he did not worry Sam with this. He was going to ignore that as blithely as the double-deckered menace ignored his opinions. Sam might be able to shake more out of them, now or in the future. Next...

Next, he was not going to bury himself in the bunker again. Let Ketch take his shot if that was what he was there for - and to give Dean the smallest amount of credit possibly due, Mick agreed with his assessment. Ketch was not trying to kill him. So Mick was going to continue on with business as normal, which included trying to ask Sam out, though he was beginning to appreciate what uphill work that was going to be.


	8. The Scarlet Cloak

“You always have that grin on your face when you’re looking at these menus,” Sam said sotto voce, a small smile of his own hovering on his lips.

“They are very entertaining,” Mick said dryly. “What exactly would ‘Pigs in an Crib’ be?”

“Hmm, sausages lying in a rack of ribs, would be my guess.”

“Ah. I bow to your superior knowledge.” 

Despite the late hour, this ghetto bar and diner, the annoying country music braying over the loudspeaker, the waitress popping her gum at them when she’d taken their drink order, Mick was enjoying this. Being out on the road, here with Sam.

“What you Americans get up to in your kitchens...”

“What did you say they made haggis out of again? Remind me?”

“Well at least-”

“Why hello there, handsome. I haven’t seen you in town before. You here for the Big Truck Fair?”

Sam’s smile went from warm to neutral-dismissive-polite as he looked up at the woman who’d leaned over him. The slur of her s’s and her faint swaying suggested the oversized plastic glass of beer in her hand was not her first, but her eyes were keen as a buzzsaw as they ran up and down Sam’s figure in the booth. Maybe not all her swaying was due to intoxication; it caused a sinuous wriggle to go up and down her curves, and her half bared breast in the brassiere bounced up and down like a pair of tennis balls. 

“No, my friend and I are just passing through,” said Sam as politely, firmly and non-engagingly as if talking to a wrinkled octogenarian giving him a religious pamphlet. He’d inclined his head faintly towards Mick at the word ‘friend’.

The woman glanced at Mick for all of half a second and then was back on Sam like a dog on a bone. “Y’should stay! It’s going to be huge! I can git you in for free, see.” 

She’d swung her hips to start sitting down next to Sam in the booth, but the latter got his arm in the way just in time. “Sorry, we need to eat and run, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

The tart’s expression veered and she took a bit of a longer look at Mick.

“My apologies, I’m not here for the Large Lorry Convention either,” Mick said (Sam suddenly coughed to cover a snort), “and we do need to get up early. Your country is quite beautiful around these parts, but there is a lot of it.”

She was looking at him in a way that suggested he smelled worse than the distant waft from the men’s room, and in no way was charmed by his attempt to flatter her through her patriotism.

“Hmf, suit yourselves,” she muttered and spun around - Mick reached out to steady her as she staggered, but she tromped away without noticing.

“Yikes,” Sam whispered, looking down at his menu again with a grin. This probably happened to him regularly, Mick thought, trying not to imitate the bint’s gaze - though it was truly amazing how good Sam could make a flannel shirt look. Drunken attentions of that variety were hardly anything to feel flattered about... yet Mick held a faint hope that Sam had turned her down so flatly for the sake of his fellow traveling companion. He smiled warmly and tried to catch Sam’s eye over the menu. This venue was wretched, but bonds could bloom in adversity. And since the floozy had given him an opening to talk about attraction, he could-

Sam’s eyebrows shot up in alarm and he tensed.

“I knew it! Think a red-blooded American boy would be interested in the likes of you?! Fuck off, you foreign fag!”

Sam managed to intercept her halfway through her diatribe, but he couldn’t intercept her beer, which landed all over Mick and his new white shirt and suit jacket.

The country singer over the speakers was yawing over the words, “It ain’t my truck in her drive” to the tempo over the speakers, but everybody else in the bar had looked over to see what the fuss was about, and were now waiting for Mick’s reaction. 

“At least it wasn’t a Guinness. This piss couldn’t stain if it tried,” were the first words out of Mick’s mouth, faintly bemused.

Sam gave the girl a hard look. She took in just how humongous he was, and the rest of her litany of insults was said over her shoulder during a fast retreat towards the safety of the bartender, visibly more sympathetic to her than to Mick (he might have overheard the disparaging comment about his beer.)

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Sam said, turning his back to Mick and the rest of the bar as he threw down a couple of twenties for the drinks that had never shown up and then strode towards the door. Mick dripped out of the booth and trickled after him, somewhat concerned. Sam’s voice had been odd; tight and strained.

Outside the bar, Sam was leaning against the Impala and laughing his head off. It was the most light-hearted Mick had ever seen him.

“Oh shit - your clothes. Sorry, Mick. I should have warned you. That’s the Winchester baptism right there.”

“The-...”

“S’happened to me and Dean more than once, for one reason or another. And specifically for _that_ reason in Duluth one time- I was thinking of getting us matching ‘he’s my brother’ t-shirts at one point.” He slapped Mick on the shoulder and then laughed some more as he realized how sopping the latter was. “I got a towel in the trunk, let’s dry you off a bit. We’ll stop at the 7-11 on the way out of town, you can clean up in their restroom-“

“Why not at a motel?” They’d been planning to stop at the accommodations right next to the diner. 

“Mick, this is the Midwest. Let’s not take any chances that your fan girl back there has some big friends around who might take up her cause. We’ll drive on to the next town over and you can have a shower. With water.”

Mick looked back at the bar. “Before that, shouldn’t we-“

“Yeah, I know, we should stand our ground against shit like that, and we got the chops to do it.” Nice of him to say ‘we’, Mick wasn’t the one who’d sent the floozy running for cover. “But you can’t change the minds of people like that, only beat them up a bit. We’re hunters, we’re after bigger game - hell, that’s the kind of people we even protect, sad to say. You okay?” Though he still had a few chuckles escaping, he was looking at Mick as if he was afraid the latter’s feelings might have been hurt. 

Mick had only wanted to suggest using the bar’s restrooms quickly so the Impala wouldn’t stink like a brewery. “No, I agree, this isn’t Soho. We’ll leave town if you think it best.”

“Sure.”

“Pity about the Big Truck Fair though.”

That just got Sam laughing again. It was wonderful to see him relax and lighten up like that. But listening to anecdotes as they drove, of the numerous drinks hurled at the Winchesters over the years, as well as other ‘crash and burns’, Mick felt a vague concern that this was all tending in a very brotherly direction. If he was destined to become the human Dean Winchester’s replacement in Sam’s life and heart, there were worse things that could happen. Mick would embrace it wholeheartedly. But he had hoped there’d be something a little more... a little more in line with what the soused bird was imagining back there. 

Then again, from what he understood of matters, Castiel had once been a brand new Winchester brother at one point in time and had ended up in bed with Dean back when he was human so... there was still some hope?


	9. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

Back in the bunker, the buzzing around of in-laws and the business of a hunter’s life took over again. Every time Mick tried to corner Sam for a casual talk with intentions to go somewhere not casual at all, it would seem the bunker would immediately get invaded by angels or demons or occasionally both. Until finally Mick realized there was no chance in hell this was happenstance. Fine. Fine! Dean and Castiel didn’t like him? That would be their issue, not his. The only opinion that mattered was Sam’s. And since it turned out he was battling interference, Mick had to stop pussyfooting around. 

Mick strode into the study room like William the conqueror. He sat down in the chair next to a startled Sam, who’d been cleaning a rather large array of weaponry on the revered oak table. 

“Sam.” Mick turned his chair to face the other and leaned forward. “I would like to be open about -“

_Boom!_

Something scythed a foot away from his head, making him duck- then Sam threw himself at him, knocking Mick out of his chair and onto the floor.

They looked around. The conference table had skidded two feet to the left under the force of something large crashing onto it after materializing in mid-air. A scaly brown creature with leathery wings flailing like bedsheets in a stiff wind - and Dean Winchester pinning it with one knee on its breastbone, a fist drawn back and eyes all black.

Dean punched down once, twice, savage and deadly, right into the thing’s head. Air rippled under the sheer strength of the blow.

The third massive punch crushed the creature’s skull and hit the table so hard the legs snapped and the whole kit and caboodle went crashing to the floor.

Dean’s fist was poised in case further violence was necessary. The thing twitched once, a shudder, then went limp.

“Hi Sam!” Dean said, then more coolly, “Mick.”

There was a windy gurgle as the creature voided itself at the other end.

“So, I need your brains. It’s to settle a bet between me and Cas,” Dean announced as if he’d strolled in through the door rather than rode in on a monster.

“Uh...”

“Look at this.” He hauled the head by the limp neck and swung it towards them. The thing’s long beak-like jaw hung open, a tongue hanging out, blood oozing from the crushed bone above the small eye socket. It reeked like a ton of rotten mackerel, making Mick’s throat catch around a dry heave. “This is a pterodactyl. Right? This is straight out of fucking ‘One Million Years BC’. Am I right?”

“It looks that way,” said Sam steadily, soaring to even greater heights in Mick’s esteem. 

“That’s what I said! But Cas says no, he was there when they were flying around all over the place and he says they were pretty. _Pretty._ That’s the word he used. Apparently they had colors and soft short fur along their backs. So he says this is not a pterodactyl.”

“He would know.” Sam was still perfectly poised.

“Well maybe he didn’t see all the kinds there were,” Dean challenged. “So I say we’re dealing with a tear in the timeline, and he says we’re dealing with a Cambion who’s fan of Harryhausen and who’s making this shit up. You need to settle this and tell me it’s a pterodactyl so I can say ‘I told you so’ and then stop the Appalachians from becoming Jurassic Park, The Reckoning.” 

“I’ll go get my books,” said Sam, getting to his feet. “Mick? Think you can help?”

“Yeah, Mick, think you can help?” Dean echoed sardonically.

“I can tell you it’s not a pterodactylus, it’s way too big.”

“He can’t help,” Dean informed his brother’s back. “Go get a book that tells me I’m right, Sammy.”

“It doesn’t have teeth, either, so it could be some other form of pterosaur,” Mick suggested.

“You’re just a trove of useless information. Can you help or not?”

“It sounds like I should, yes.”

“Hey, find out what a time hole looks like, and if it’s stable!” Dean yelled after his brother. “Cas says it’s too dangerous, but I want to go through and bag me a t-rex.”

“Tyrannosaurus and pterosaur were from different epochs-“

“Bite me, Mick. Grab a book or get out of the way. I’m heading back, there were more where this came from.” Then he vanished.


	10. Quo Vadis

Mick ran into Sam while putting away some of the books and research materials in the stacks after sorting out a tangled witch’s spell. The bunker was quiet, there were no rampaging demons or dinosaurs about, one could almost call the atmosphere serene by contrast. Mick, who knew a halfway decent chance at a much needed conversation when he saw it, gave Sam a warm smile. The one he got in return looked a little constrained, a little less genuine than usual.

“Bit of a nutty week- month, really, but maybe we can have a day or two of breather. I-“

“Oops, I’m in the wrong stack.” Sam turned quickly on his heels and headed in the other direction. 

Mick didn’t know field work or hunting all that well, and he didn’t know pterosaurs from shit according to some, but he knew books, and he was pretty sure the ones in Sam’s hand went right here. He hesitated, hoping Sam had just made a mistake. If not... then it was even more important to have a talk about this, if only to clear the air, set some boundaries. Mick quickly followed Sam around the corner to find the library empty bar a whiff of sulfur. 

“Yes. That’s just about what I’d expect,” Mick said, thumping down the volumes he was holding. “And I was ten feet away - he could have at least told me what was going on-“

“We need some assistance.”

Mick yelped at the sudden voice behind him. 

“C- Castiel! Please don’t do that! What is it now?!”

Castiel looked perfectly indifferent to Mick’s incipient coronary. “A minor crisis.”

“Just minor? What, is it the weekend? Major ruptures in time and space don’t punch in today?”

Even the angel picked up on the acridity of the remark, and gave Mick a searching glance.

Mick shook himself sternly and focused on the immediate and the important. “Where is Sam? Is he alright?”

“He’s fine. I need your assistance in a library.” A look around. “A different library.”

“When you say he’s fine, you mean he’s off fighting something god-awful side by side with a knight of hell, so I hope you understand that your struggle with the Dewey Decimal system is lower in my priorities.” Mick, still seething about- about everything right now, was not in a mood to be conciliating even to an entity who could smite him with half a thought. 

His tone was ignored, but his words got him a bit of a glare. “Dean will take great care of Sam.”

Mick opened his mouth to say that he knew exactly how much care Dean took of Sam, and that Castiel could go visit his library by himself.

“I need your help in the Royal Library of Alexandria - specifically their underground vault where the Ptolemaic dynasty hid their magical texts. We are looking for six tomes that only exist there.”

Mick’s mouth stayed open for a few seconds. Then he said slowly: “You... Uh... You mean the ancient one? The library that was destroyed by fire a few thousand years ago?”

“Yes, which is why I need your help.”

“I apologize, you are going to have to explain that statement.”

“I can take us back in time,” said Castiel with heavy patience, “it’s not a protected timezone, but I will be tired and will need your help looking up the volumes we need.”

A whimper escaped Mick. It made the angel cock his head and look at him dubiously.

“...You are absolutely sure Sam is going to be alright?” Mick asked.

“I wouldn’t leave them to oppose this euclidean catastrophe alone if I wasn’t.”

“Euclidean... never mind. Fine. Very well. Can you wait a minute or two?”

“Why?”

“I need to get every single notebook in the bunker as well as my camera. If we’re going to one of the greatest libraries of all times, then I’m going to make it worth my while.”


	11. The Right Stuff

Alexandria (400BC) having been a hit, Mick was in a more equitable mood when he returned, especially when he found that Sam had gotten back safely from his own adventures. Mick didn’t linger to compare notes, however; he had something he needed to do. The two of them needed to have a serious heart-to-heart, but the impediments had to be dealt with first. Castiel was tired out by his time travel and the ensuing battle against rampaging geometries from another dimension (or as the Winchesters called, ‘your average Saturday’.) So that left only one demon to sort out, and during his trip, Mick had found a gold star summoning ritual that should do the trick even for something like Dean. He contemplated sorting out his problem with a well-placed devil’s trap, but this was still Sam’s brother, so he decided to try reason first. His room was ward- and trap-free, merely locked for privacy when he performed the ritual.

“Just to be clear, I can ignore these,” said Dean, stepping out of thin air and giving the smoking brazier an unimpressed look. “I just wanted to see who had the cojones to give me a call, but next time I’m sending through a hellhound.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t anticipate having to call on you again.” Mick closed his book of spells with a crisp gesture. “I just wanted to talk to you in private this one time. I would like you and Castiel to stop interfering with affairs between your brother and I. I know Sam’s not interested, but I would like to hear it from him, and discuss it like adults without having you or your boyfriend barge in at the worst possible moment. Can you promise me that?”

Dean stared at him with his head a little back as if sighting along his nose might make Mick’s words make more sense. “Not interested?”

Mick shrugged. “Despite your increasingly elaborate attempts to interfere, I’m certain I’ve been transparent enough in my intentions, and Sam’s not shown any interest. But as I said, I want to hear it from him.”

“...I thought you guys were a done deal months ago. But let me get this straight.” Dean scratched his chin. “You’ve been trying to bone my brother all this time, and you think me and Cas are cockblocking you?”

“That is exactly how I would have chosen _not_ to put it, but I suppose I can’t expect much decorum from a demon.”

Dean snorted, then strolled over and looped his arm around Mick’s shoulders, a tight grip that reminded him this creature could crush him. “Mick! Mick Mick Mick- can I call you Mickey?”

“No.”

“Mickey, you got it all wrong.”

“Do I now,” Mick said coldly without bothering to make it a question. “Are you going to pretend it was all a coincidence and that you and Castiel have nothing against me whatsoever?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Despite giving you a truly stellar Nerd rating, Cas is still just a little bit on the fence about you, but he admits he’s being overprotective of Sam. As for me, you gotta know you’re not in my bad books. You’re still alive.” Dean patted him on the chest a little harder than the gesture required, his grin all teeth.

“I’m still alive because Castiel told you not to kill me.”

“Cas is an angel. He never mastered the art of the loophole. Just because he told me not to kill you or hurt you, does not mean that I can’t strand you alive and completely unharmed at the top of Mount Everest.” Cue an extra hard squeeze around the shoulders.

Mick weighed that and the feral grin. “So that’s your answer? Stay away from Sam or you’ll find a way to kill me?”

“No no no, Mickey, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s not me and Cas you have to worry about, what you’re coming up against is much stronger than the both of us combined. It’s the Winchester Effect.”

“And what is that?” Mick asked, tone flat.

“Forget heaven or hell. It’s a law of the universe. Nature abhors two things, Mickey. A vacuum and a happy Winchester.”

“Is that so.”

“But first, tell me,” Dean asked, suddenly intent. “What was the worst thing that happened when you tried to cope a feel?”

“I did _not_ \- I was _trying_ to have a mature talk with him about our mutual feelings, our connection, and how I would like to see it evolve,” Mick informed him stiffly.

Dean made a sound like a backward whistle, sucking in his breath as if Mick had told him he planned to hunt Wendigo while slathered in Worcestershire sauce. “Oh yeah, that’d definitely do it. So what happened? Just trying to get a feel for the high-water mark here.”

“You crashing in with what turned out _not_ to be a pterodactylus would probably be the top of the list.”

“Hmmm, a contender, if we’re in the bantam weight class... still, you guys might have a future. The thing is, the fact that the universe is dicking with you is a good sign, it means you might actually have a chance of giving my lil’ brother the good roll in the sheets he so obviously needs and survive the experience. For awhile.” 

Mick merely scoffed.

“He thinks I’m kidding,” Dean informed the far wall with a shake of his head. “But I’m not. I’ve run into this before. See, me and Cas now, it was obvious we were the real deal, ‘cause each and every time I tried to corner him with intent, the world would end. Like fucking clockwork. The instant I tried to hook up with Cas, we’d get an apocalypse. Or one of us would die. Or go crazy. Or turn evil. Same for Sam - which is why you shouldn’t take his bashfulness for an out and out no. Hell, if he wanted to say no, he’d have said no ages ago to try to get you out of the blast radius. And if he thought you were a cheap one night stand, he’d have said yes already and dumped you the next day. The fact he ain’t said anything means you’re really in with a chance. But you can’t wait for Sam to take you out on a hot date, he won’t. I bet he’s silently begging you to make that first move, but he won’t do it himself because he’ll feel like he’s giving you the kiss of death. And also because he’s a big girl. Make sure you bring him a corsage when you finally take him out to the prom.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Mick finally managed to get in edgewise.

“About the several ladies he’s had to bury. And at least one fella that I heard about. I told you, Winchester effect. Between the two of us and our dad, we got an Arlington Cemetery’s worth of dear departed. Lemme see, Sammy’s lost several to demons, at least one to possession, one got murdered, another cursed to death, there was that werewolf chick he had to put down - the only one who escaped unscathed was the one he dumped clean and hard and ran away from. See where I’m going with this?” 

Despite Dean being taller and right in his face, Mick made a creditable attempt to look down his nose at the demonic git. “I have spent decades studying mysteries of the lore that have driven lesser men mad. There is no such thing as this Winchester effect you describe.”

“Yeah?”

“Your issues with Castiel were a combination of coincidence and the consequences of a risky lifestyle. My issues with Sam are you and Castiel.”

“Are you seriously telling me you’ve _never_ been interrupted by anything else?”

“I-...”

“Ha-ah?”

“...Coincidence.”

“You’re too deep into magic and the supernatural to find your way out through the Logic door, buddy.”

“Its coincidence!” Mick insisted, anger sparking and overriding recollections of inopportune phone calls from hunters, a beer flying, other mundane intrusions, and his wonder at the time how Dean had managed the pterodactyl-flavored interruption and how he’d even known there was something to interrupt in the first place. “Sam and I have several dangers hovering over us - and he’s central to the hunters. Our lives are busy, that is a fact, we do not need you two butting in on top of that.”

“Dude, Winchester effect.”

Finally and unexpectedly, after months of frustration and anxiety and stress, Mick completely lost it. He threw off Dean’s arm hard and shouted: “You’re doing it again! Trying to frighten me off! It’s not going to work! I don’t care about some ridiculous theory you made up!” Dean opened his mouth - Mick threw his whole weight behind a shove that managed to make the demon stumble back a step. ”Treat your brother and I like rational adults! Stop interfering! I am going to spend whatever time I have left with Sam if it’s-“

He’d wound up for another shove- which sent him stumbling through suddenly empty air. He fell flat on his face in the middle of the library, instead of his room.

His arrival was heralded by a shower of paper as Sam sent the file he was holding flying up towards the ceiling in shock, right hand groping the back of his belt for his weapon before he recognized who’d suddenly magically appeared.

“Mick! Are you okay?!”

“Sam! Will you go out to dinner with me?!” Mick snapped, looking up from his position on the floor. Sam was even taller from this angle.

“What?!” Sam knelt down and hauled him up to his knees. “Did you bang your-“

“Answer me!”

Mick’s hands tightened into fists against the hardwood as very different expressions fleeted across his friend’s face. It was possibly because Dean had put that _stupid_ notion in his head that Mick thought he saw both longing and concerned reluctance warring there. 

“Well?” he asked crisply. “Please, just answer. Do you want to-“

“Uh, yes, Mick. I- I do. But are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself? You’re very, er, you look agitated.”

Mick was glaring around the room and yes, he probably looked quite agitated.

“Are you okay?”

“I am perfectly fine,” said Mick, pulling his British arse together through sheer willpower, and adjusting his vest.

“Yes. You are at that,” said Sam softly with a ghost of a smile and some odd, rich swirls of feelings at the back of his tone. “Mick, I- I really should tell you... the people I hook up with, they-“

“Sam, listen to me carefully. I have done many things in my past that I regret, but I stand by the consequences, every one of them. As for my current situation, I am the one who gave the Men of letters the two-fingered salute, I know full well I will not live to a ripe old age as a result and I stand by that consequence just as firmly, and with considerable pride. Do not in any way take that from me or let it be an obstacle. Dinner was a figure of speech, you understood that, correct?” 

“Yes, I sort of gathered. Just to be sure- how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three, it’s Tuesday, Her Majesty Elizabeth the second is still queen of England and head of the commonwealth, and I am not concussed.”

“I see.” Sam seemed to be battling down a smile. “Which one of them messed with you?”

“Dean. Wait, are you saying Castiel might give me the same treatment?”

“I think maybe he’s been trying to all along, he’s just not as good at it.” Sam helped him gently to his feet. “Um, don’t take it personally, right? It’s not that they don’t like you, it’s just that they’re, well, a little suspicious of new people getting close to our family.”

“ _Right_. But their opinion notwithstanding, you’re willing to- to see where this- to enter into a relationship with me and see where this leads?”

“You’re swaying- yes, yes, Mick, calm down.” Remains of concern warred with a pleased look, and a hint of amusement. “Damn, they really riled you up, I have never seen you like this. Hey, where are you going?”

Mick strode over to the war room and glared at the map table. Nothing anywhere was lighting up. The world was not ending.

He couldn’t say, right this minute, if that was a good thing or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Mick, finally scores his touchdown. Epilogue out tomorrow ^_^


	12. Until the End of the World

Mick disapproved of scamming credit cards and cheating at pool. Insider trading was much more elegant and lucrative. 

He’d applied himself and now had a little nest egg that provided dividends. It meant they could upgrade their choice of accommodations when hunting. No more need for hazmat suits, and people were always more polite to a platinum card. Nowadays, when asked for a room with a single large bed for two men, the only probing question the registration clerk would ask was, “Will you want the continental breakfast with that, sirs, or the deluxe?”

In the light of an early morning sunshine creeping in past the curtains, Mick watched Sam slowly wake up, and stretch his long magnificent frame. 

“What’s up?” Sam cocked his head against his pillow, taking in the way Mick was sitting, arms wrapped around his legs, body language closed off.

”...Do you ever feel things are just too good to be true?”

This got Mick a sleepy blink of incomprehension.

“It’s simply that I am... very happy with where I am right now. It just feels as if-...”

Sam scratched his chest. “Come on, Mick. Evidence to the contrary, life is not some evil entity out to get us as soon as we’re no longer on the verge of slitting our wrists. Unless you actually believe that Winchester Effect crap Dean tried to feed you back in April?”

“I know that was a bunch of cobblers,” Mick said, while in the back of his mind, he had to wonder. Not so much about a stupid universal rule that would stop them from being happy for any length of time. More the fact that they had something to lose now, and enough enemies around them to capitalize on it. Or, well, maybe he did believe in jinxes, just a little.

Long arms reached up and drew him down into a deep, slow kiss. 

“We need to get going,” Mick said regretfully after a few minutes.

“Heh, Dean ‘n Cas can wait.”

“They _can_ wait, but they won’t and thus will pop straight into our hotel room at the most inconvenient moment.”

Sam opened his mouth as if to object that his brothers weren’t really that bad, then sighed. “You’re right. C’mon.”

\---

An hour later saw them park the car on the outskirts of Somewhere USA. Walking towards the abandoned railway station that was their rendez-vous location, they spotted Castiel first, standing next to... a motor bike? Dean was nearby, talking to a man dressed in black with-

“Hey, Sam, Mickey. Come meet the new help. He’s got an even better accent than your slice, Sammy.”

“I am a paid consultant. Not _the help,_ ” said Ketch, empty hands held high in polite deference to the gun Sam was pointing at his center mass.

“What the fuck, Dean.”

“We figured out those hinky omens. We’re on the track of Hell Princes - ‘cause apparently that’s a thing. And get this, one of ‘em might even have the Colt. Now, you know Cas, right? He worries.”

“I worry,” echoed Castiel composedly.

“This dude’s now for hire. Despite the accent, the attitude and the stiff upper lip crap, we’ve found him vicious enough to help you two girl scouts sell your cookies while we’re out bustin’ skulls. Crowley should show up too at some point, he’s got a vested interest.” 

Sam glared at Ketch, and without lowering his gun, muttered: “So. Mick. Still think everything is too good to be true?

“Princes, the Colt, Ketch and Crowley,” Mick mused. “No, I think we can safely say we’re back on track.”

“Glad to hear it. Come on, sounds like we got work to do.”

“Right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End 
> 
> (Unless I decide to write a follow-up in Ketch’s POV about all the crazy stuff going on.)


End file.
